Examples of conventional coating devices that continuously perform coating on the surface of a running web include a die coater. Typically, the die coater includes a die piece formed by combining a pair of split die piece members. It is also typical that the die coater is provided with a manifold extending in the longitudinal direction of the die piece and a slit extending from the manifold radially outward toward the direction of the die piece. Examples of types of die coaters include the following: a coating width fixed-type coating device having a structure in which a slit is formed up to an end in the width direction and the coating width is fixed in advance by a side plate etc.; and an inner deckle-type coating device which is used, for example, for extrusion etc. and has a structure in which the coating width can be set arbitrarily.
The inner deckle-type coating device is a coating device with a die. For coating width adjustment in this type of coating device, inner deckles are arranged at both ends of the die piece, and a shaft-shaped deckle main body and a sheet- or film-shaped deckle auxiliary portion of each inner deckle are arranged in the manifold and the slit, respectively, in a liquid-tight state. Such a coating device is disclosed, for example, in JP Patent Appl. Publ. No. 9-094510.
In the configuration employed in the coating device of JP Patent Appl. Publ. No. 9-094510, an outer circumferential portion of the deckle main body, at a position thereof corresponding to the base of the deckle auxiliary portion, is provided with an annular gland packing whose outer diameter is set to achieve a liquid-tight state with the inner wall of the manifold of the die. It is disclosed that with this configuration, the liquid-tight state between the die and the inner deckle is retained and the inner deckle can be moved inside the manifold of the die without the die having to be disassembled so that the coating width can easily be adjusted.